Considerable effort has been made in recent years to develop a technique for fabricating skis from synthetic-resin materials in place of the wood which has been required heretofore.
It has been proposed, for example, to fabricate skis from certain synthetic-resin materials, such as polyurethanes, by molding. It has also been suggested to provide a molded core of such synthetic resins with an upper protective plate which is more wear-resistant than the core and a lower sliding plate or layer (sole plate) of a material having better sliding characteristics than the core vis-a-vis the snow. The core alone is incapable of imparting to the ski the desired degree of rigidity, strength and flexibility (resilience) which is necessary for satisfactory skiing.
It will be apparent that skis made from snythetic resin have several advantages over skis having a wood core, namely lower fabrication cost, greater ease of fabrication and the like. However, none of the conventional systems for making skis with synthetic-resin cores has yet proved to be wholly satisfactory, nor have the skis themselves successfully competed with wooden-core skis from the point of view of the physical characteristics mentioned above.